Tag Archives: infected

Sometimes while we are browsing the internet whether it be watching YouTube or perhaps doing research for a school project. At some point, you will come across Scare Ware.

An example of scareware you might see.

Simply put, Scare Ware is an attempt to gain your trust and cause anxiety and make you believe your computer is infected. It will say something like: “Warning your PC is infected! Hard drive is crashing in 10 seconds and will be deleted! call this number!” or something else to cause fear. Don’t panic, don’t click on the prompt or anywhere on the page and don’t call that number. Your computer is perfectly fine.

They want you to call the number and if you click on the prompt it will begin to download a virus or a trojan of some kind and infect your computer. What the guys on the phone will do is run a fake scan on your computer and tell you your computer is “infected” which if you clicked on the prompt it will be at that point but if not you will be fine.

They will “clean” your PC and then charge you a handsome fee for security protection known as “vaporware” which means it’s a fake program that actually does nothing on your PC.

So how do you prevent this mess from happening? When one of this things pops up and hijacks your browsing session, simply close out of your browser completely and when you start it back up, clear your cache in your browser and move on. There is nothing to fear because your PC is not infected if you didn’t click on the “free download” button if there was one or something like it.